Price Of Oil Skyrocketing Again
Diesel Bomber
Joined: Mar 2007
Posts: 2,015
Likes: 102
From: Nanaimo, BC Canada,
Reason, Shirt, Excuse - ****, who cares, they know they can do what they want and we have little choice. Governments are only partially to blame because of their screwed up tax structure but at the end of the day it is the greenies that are raping us in the pocket book.
Whine, snivel, bitch, complain, for ***** sake, enough's enough...
I think the consumer is also to blame. So many of us in Canada and the USA are living on the credit card - not the bank account and we just say, well I need it so you throw the VISA down and it is what it is. This is really dangerous because when the personal debt gets to a point where you can't manage it, let alone pay just the minimums you are BIG trouble.
I make good money doing what I do and every month I pay nearly $2k on credit to get it paid off by September of this year - that's about $26k when I started and it is quickly coming down but the thing is with the money left over there isn't much you can do with it. I don't want debt. I hate it. If you can't pay cash for it - don't buy it, period.
Whine, snivel, bitch, complain, for ***** sake, enough's enough...
I think the consumer is also to blame. So many of us in Canada and the USA are living on the credit card - not the bank account and we just say, well I need it so you throw the VISA down and it is what it is. This is really dangerous because when the personal debt gets to a point where you can't manage it, let alone pay just the minimums you are BIG trouble.
I make good money doing what I do and every month I pay nearly $2k on credit to get it paid off by September of this year - that's about $26k when I started and it is quickly coming down but the thing is with the money left over there isn't much you can do with it. I don't want debt. I hate it. If you can't pay cash for it - don't buy it, period.
Diesel Bomber
Joined: Dec 2007
Posts: 1,202
Likes: 58
From: Buffalo, NY
But I need to fill up again Wyatt! That ought to max out my Mastercard.
Diesel 30 years ago - $.40/gallon
Diesel 20 years ago - $.80/gallon
Diesel 10 years ago - $1.60/gallon
Maxing out your credit limit to fill up your tank - Priceless
There are some things money can't buy, for everything else your still screwed...
Diesel 30 years ago - $.40/gallon
Diesel 20 years ago - $.80/gallon
Diesel 10 years ago - $1.60/gallon
Maxing out your credit limit to fill up your tank - Priceless
There are some things money can't buy, for everything else your still screwed...
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From: Why-homing
Oil trading probe may uncover manipulation
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Amid soaring oil prices that some say are caused by nothing more than rampant speculation, the government Thursday announced a wide ranging probe into oil price manipulation and said it would get more information on the effect investors are having on the market.
The measures, undertaken by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission after pressure from angry lawmakers, do two things.
First, they'll attempt to gather more information from index funds and other non-commercial users of oil. They'll also seek information on oil trades made outside the U.S. on exchanges like the IntercontinentalExchange Europe (ICE) where the CFTC has no oversight and has been unable to get more detailed information.
The second thing on the CFTC's agenda is an actual investigation into possible price manipulation - most likely by a commercial user of oil like a production company, shipping company, or storage company.
Information gathering
Recent investor interest in commodities is an issue of intense debate. Some say investors, who have been funneling money into oil and other commodities over the last several months amid rising inflation and falling stock prices, are unjustifiably driving up the price of oil and gas simply because they have no other place to put their money.
Others say tight supply and strong demand are the real reasons behind this investor interest, and the market is functioning properly to limit demand and increase supply.
CFTC has previously said that it has not found any evidence that speculators were artificially inflating prices.
"Data used by Commission staff show that price changes are largely unrelated to fund trading," according to written testimony before a Senate hearing earlier this month by CFTC Chief Economist Jeffrey Harris. "Broad-based manipulative forces are not driving the recent higher futures prices in commodities across-the-board."
Neither Harris nor any other economist at the CFTC could not be reached for comment.
According to a chart presented in its congressional testimony, it appears the CFTC used data from 2007 to reach its conclusion.
Additional reporting by index funds and other non-commercial buyers of crude will help CFTC make better analysis, said Michael Haigh, head of U.S. commodities research at the investment bank Société Générale and a former economist at the CFTC.
Even so, he doesn't expect the CFTC's overall conclusion - that investors aren't unjustifiably driving up oil prices - to change much.
More regulation on the way?
But Haigh said oil traders see this request for additional information as perhaps a precursor to broader regulation, like increasing the amount of contracts speculators are allowed to hold or raising the amount of money investors have to put down to buy those contracts.
"The fear that this might happen may drive people out of the market," he said. "There could be a run for the gates."
Oil prices fell Thursday by over $4, one of the biggest declines in recent weeks. One expert attributed the slide to the investigation.
"The traders now know that someone is looking over their shoulder," said Michael Greenberger, a professor at the University of Maryland and a former CFTC official. "Their phony sales are being watched, and in one day there was the biggest drop in 2 1/2 months."
If there is a run for the gates, Haigh said prices may or may not fall, but liquidity would be reduced, leaving the market more vulnerable to manipulation by a single participant.
Possible manipulation
And that's the second thing the CFTC is looking into - "practices surrounding the purchase, transportation, storage, and trading of crude oil and related derivative contracts," the agency said in a statement.
This most likely means manipulation of the physical oil market, not typically done by speculators but rather by commercial players who might literally withhold oil from the market in an attempt to drive prices higher.
The CFTC has found evidence of this in the past. BP recently settled a suit that alleged the company tried to corner the propane market to inflate prices in 2003 and 2004. BP agreed to pay a $303 million settlement.
Haigh thinks it's likely CFTC will find evidence of this again given that the agency has been investigating for six months and has now chosen to make it public. But he stressed that a single player acting alone would in all likelihood not have a huge influence on prices.
"It's difficult to imagine a price runup of $90 to $135 being done by one entity," he said.
He believes the CFTC took the unusual step of announcing the investigation to placate angry lawmakers who may be tempted to enact broader regulations on the oil futures market that would hamper trading.
One analyst said the CFTC investigation will have little effect.
"This investigation is just a way for the government to divert attention away from the fact that it hasn't created a viable energy policy," said Mike Fitzpatrick, an analyst at the brokerage MF Global in New York. "Ultimately, fundamentals rule the markets...this investigation is going to wind up producing nothing."
Not everyone agrees fundamentals rule the market.
"There is a theory that the price of crude oil is being driven up not by supply and demand principles, but by speculators using what are called dark markets, markets that can't be watched by the public or regulators, to manipulate the price of crude," said Greenberger.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Amid soaring oil prices that some say are caused by nothing more than rampant speculation, the government Thursday announced a wide ranging probe into oil price manipulation and said it would get more information on the effect investors are having on the market.
The measures, undertaken by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission after pressure from angry lawmakers, do two things.
First, they'll attempt to gather more information from index funds and other non-commercial users of oil. They'll also seek information on oil trades made outside the U.S. on exchanges like the IntercontinentalExchange Europe (ICE) where the CFTC has no oversight and has been unable to get more detailed information.
The second thing on the CFTC's agenda is an actual investigation into possible price manipulation - most likely by a commercial user of oil like a production company, shipping company, or storage company.
Information gathering
Recent investor interest in commodities is an issue of intense debate. Some say investors, who have been funneling money into oil and other commodities over the last several months amid rising inflation and falling stock prices, are unjustifiably driving up the price of oil and gas simply because they have no other place to put their money.
Others say tight supply and strong demand are the real reasons behind this investor interest, and the market is functioning properly to limit demand and increase supply.
CFTC has previously said that it has not found any evidence that speculators were artificially inflating prices.
"Data used by Commission staff show that price changes are largely unrelated to fund trading," according to written testimony before a Senate hearing earlier this month by CFTC Chief Economist Jeffrey Harris. "Broad-based manipulative forces are not driving the recent higher futures prices in commodities across-the-board."
Neither Harris nor any other economist at the CFTC could not be reached for comment.
According to a chart presented in its congressional testimony, it appears the CFTC used data from 2007 to reach its conclusion.
Additional reporting by index funds and other non-commercial buyers of crude will help CFTC make better analysis, said Michael Haigh, head of U.S. commodities research at the investment bank Société Générale and a former economist at the CFTC.
Even so, he doesn't expect the CFTC's overall conclusion - that investors aren't unjustifiably driving up oil prices - to change much.
More regulation on the way?
But Haigh said oil traders see this request for additional information as perhaps a precursor to broader regulation, like increasing the amount of contracts speculators are allowed to hold or raising the amount of money investors have to put down to buy those contracts.
"The fear that this might happen may drive people out of the market," he said. "There could be a run for the gates."
Oil prices fell Thursday by over $4, one of the biggest declines in recent weeks. One expert attributed the slide to the investigation.
"The traders now know that someone is looking over their shoulder," said Michael Greenberger, a professor at the University of Maryland and a former CFTC official. "Their phony sales are being watched, and in one day there was the biggest drop in 2 1/2 months."
If there is a run for the gates, Haigh said prices may or may not fall, but liquidity would be reduced, leaving the market more vulnerable to manipulation by a single participant.
Possible manipulation
And that's the second thing the CFTC is looking into - "practices surrounding the purchase, transportation, storage, and trading of crude oil and related derivative contracts," the agency said in a statement.
This most likely means manipulation of the physical oil market, not typically done by speculators but rather by commercial players who might literally withhold oil from the market in an attempt to drive prices higher.
The CFTC has found evidence of this in the past. BP recently settled a suit that alleged the company tried to corner the propane market to inflate prices in 2003 and 2004. BP agreed to pay a $303 million settlement.
Haigh thinks it's likely CFTC will find evidence of this again given that the agency has been investigating for six months and has now chosen to make it public. But he stressed that a single player acting alone would in all likelihood not have a huge influence on prices.
"It's difficult to imagine a price runup of $90 to $135 being done by one entity," he said.
He believes the CFTC took the unusual step of announcing the investigation to placate angry lawmakers who may be tempted to enact broader regulations on the oil futures market that would hamper trading.
One analyst said the CFTC investigation will have little effect.
"This investigation is just a way for the government to divert attention away from the fact that it hasn't created a viable energy policy," said Mike Fitzpatrick, an analyst at the brokerage MF Global in New York. "Ultimately, fundamentals rule the markets...this investigation is going to wind up producing nothing."
Not everyone agrees fundamentals rule the market.
"There is a theory that the price of crude oil is being driven up not by supply and demand principles, but by speculators using what are called dark markets, markets that can't be watched by the public or regulators, to manipulate the price of crude," said Greenberger.
Once can assume there is some truth to possible manipulation being the price of oil dropped and diesel has gone down 10+ cents per gallon in the last 4 days but gas has only dropped 1 cent! The oil companies must of looked at Enron's play book to see if it would work for oil as well as it did in the electrical market.
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From: Why-homing
Crude futures lingered near $122 a barrel for much of Thursday's session, and then without warning rocketed nearly $6 higher in the last hour of trading, an unprecedented surge that marked the largest intraday price move in the oil contract's history at the New York Mercantile Exchange.
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From: Why-homing
OIL 6.41+5.02%
$134.20
Holy crap it headin up more
By PABLO GORONDI, Associated Press Writer
7 minutes ago
Oil is trading above $134 per barrel on an analyst prediction that prices could hit $150 by July 4.
Prices jumped $6.43 Friday shortly after Ole Slorer of Morgan Stanley released a report saying he expected a "short-term spike in oil prices," on the back of rising demand in Asia, Dow Jones Newswires reported.
By the afternoon in Europe, light, sweet crude for July delivery was up $6.43 to $134.22 in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
On Thursday, the contract rose $5.49 — its biggest single-day price increase in Nymex history — to settle at $127.79 a barrel. Larger one-day percentage jumps have taken place in the past.
$134.20
Holy crap it headin up more
By PABLO GORONDI, Associated Press Writer
7 minutes ago
Oil is trading above $134 per barrel on an analyst prediction that prices could hit $150 by July 4.
Prices jumped $6.43 Friday shortly after Ole Slorer of Morgan Stanley released a report saying he expected a "short-term spike in oil prices," on the back of rising demand in Asia, Dow Jones Newswires reported.
By the afternoon in Europe, light, sweet crude for July delivery was up $6.43 to $134.22 in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
On Thursday, the contract rose $5.49 — its biggest single-day price increase in Nymex history — to settle at $127.79 a barrel. Larger one-day percentage jumps have taken place in the past.
Last edited by Whit; Jun 6, 2008 at 10:31 AM.
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From: Why-homing
interesting.......oil company spending
FACTBOX-Lehman survey of major oil company spending | Markets | Markets News | Reuters
FACTBOX-Lehman survey of major oil company spending | Markets | Markets News | Reuters
Now they don't even need to look for doom and gloom in some 3rd world country they now use some analyst prediction (AKA Mouth) to run up the price of oil. They need to put a stop/end to oil speculation and while we are at it include food and farm crops as all it does is cause people to pay more then they should. To many people are greedy and dishonest ones find ways to make the price go up for no reason other then they want more $$$$$$$$$ an they don't care who they hurt! 
